then,"
he said, "to the Word of God"; and with intense solemnity he read aloud
to her the wonderful verses in the one-hundred-and-thirty-ninth Psalm,
between the twelfth and seventeenth, laying particular stress on the
sixteenth verse, "'Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect;
and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were
fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.' So then Jane, dear Jane,
you see from the very, very first, when as yet no member of the child
had been formed it was _written down in God's Book_ as a man or a woman
yet to be. All souls so written down, are the children of the Most High.
It was not only yourself and me you were wronging, Jane, you were
sinning against the Father and lover of souls, for we are all 'the
children of the most High.'"

But Jane was apparently unmoved. "I am tired," she said wearily. "I want
to go to my room."

"I have other things to say to you, most important things. Will you come
here this evening after dinner?"

"No, I will not. I am going to see mother."

"Call at Hatton House as you come back, and I will meet you there."

"I shall not come back today. I feel ill--and no wonder."

"When will you return?"

"I don't know. I tell you I feel ill."

"Then you had better not go to Harlow House."

"Where else should a woman go in trouble but to her mother? When her
heart is breaking, then she knows that the nest of all nests is her
mother's breast."

John wanted to tell her that God and a loving husband might and surely
would help her, but when she raised her lovely, sad eyes brimming with
tears and he saw how white and full of suffering her face was, he could
not find in his heart to dispute her words. For he suffered in seeing
her suffer far more than she could understand.

At her own room door he left her and his heart was so heavy he could not
go to the mill. He could not think of gold and cotton while there was
such an abyss between him and his wife. Truly she had wronged and
wounded him in an intolerable manner, but his great love could look
beyond the wrong to her repentance and to his forgiveness.

Walking restlessly about his room or lost in sorrowful broodings an hour
passed, and then he began to tell himself that he must not for the
indulgence of even his great grief desert his lawful work. If things
went wrong at the mill, because of his absence, and gain was lost for
his delay, he would be wronging many more tha